The Guns of August 
Lowering the Flag on the American Century
By Chalmers Johnson http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175286/

In 1962, the historian Barbara Tuchman published a book about the start of World War I and called it The Guns of August. It went on to win a Pulitzer Prize.  She was, of course, looking back at events that had occurred almost 50 years earlier and had at her disposal documents and information not available to participants. They were acting, as Vietnam-era Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara put it, in the fog of war.

Why Are We in Afghanistan?
As Petraeus Takes Over, Could Success Be Worse Than Failure?
By Tom Engelhardt  http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175272/

July 12, 2011, Washington, D.C. -- In triumphant testimony before a joint committee of Congress in which he was greeted on both sides of the aisle as a conquering hero, Gen. David Petraeus announced the withdrawal this month of the first 1,000 American troops from Afghanistan.  “This is the beginning of the pledge the president made to the American people to draw down the surge troops sent in since 2009,” he said, adding, “and yet let me emphasize, as I did when I took this job, that our commitment to the Afghan government and people is an enduring one.”

Fourth of July 2010  Independence Day: the US –a system too entrenched to  CHANGE

PEJ News - Joan Russow, Ph.D. - Global Compliance Research Project - Throughout his campaign, Barack  Obama declared that he would "chart a new course for America", and in his victory speech he said: “This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make this change. And this cannot happen if we go back to the way things were." And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores. our destiny is shared. But has he moved the United States of America away from its years of militarism, competitiveness and fundamentalism? Enclosed is a list of 100 ways that the United States of America has not yet, on July 4, 2010 moved away from “going back to the way things were. "Perhaps the system is so entrenched that even a well meaning president is obliged to continue with the way things were.
www.PEJ.org

Kick Ass or Buy Gas? 
How Taxpayers Are Subsidizing BP’s Disaster Through the Pentagon 
By Nick Turse

Residents of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida are livid with BP in the wake of the massive, never-ending oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico -- and Barack Obama says they ought to be.  But there’s one aspect of the BP story that most of those angry residents of the Gulf states aren’t aware of.  And the president hasn’t had a thing to say about it.

WASHINGTON, Jun 3 (IPS) - Israel's disastrous raid in international waters Monday on a Turkish-flagged flotilla carrying humanitarian supplies to Gaza has resurrected a long-running debate over whether Washington's close alliance with the Jewish state really serves U.S. strategic interests. Ironically, one negative answer was provided in Jerusalem Tuesday by none other than the head of Israel's vaunted foreign-intelligence agency, Mossad.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175251/
Alioune Niass, the Sengalese Muslim vendor who first spotted the now infamous smoking SUV in Times Square and alerted police, is no hero.

If it were not for the Times of London, we would not even know of his pivotal role in the story. No mainstream American newspaper bothered to mention or profile Niass, who peddles framed photographs of celebs and the Manhattan skyline. None of the big television stations interviewed him.